Page 6 of Renata Vitali (The Five Syndicates)
Her flash of anger speared me, but she reined it in. The urge to whisper, let loose, Princess. Fight me, beautiful, gripped my throat until I swallowed. Twice. My throat bobbed violently both times, my mouth drier than I remembered it being ten minutes ago. Her anger intrigued me, urged me to dive in, unravel her secrets one by one until they became mine, and I knew all of her.
I wasn’t a tyrant. I didn’t need to know everything about everyone in my territory. Or maybe I’d just never been confronted by someone in Devils Ridge that I didn’t know. Either way, I found myself in a peculiar position—off balance, too interested for my own damned good, and a little pissed off because of it.
Renata rose off the bed, her movements as graceful as her mafia royalty pedigree suggested. “Just seeing what I’m dealing with here.”
My eyes tracked her body, tracing a path down the curves her baggy clothes hid until they returned to those amber orbs. She stared at me, her hand suspended in the air like she wanted to touch me. I cocked a brow, daring her to go for it, wondering what I’d do if she listened.
She took a small step backward, but I noticed it. My reflexes had my lips tilting upward, but I fought the urge to smile. This girl had fight. She had spine, and back bone, and all the things I never knew I wanted in her.
“Have your fill yet? I may have to charge admission, and I guarantee you can’t afford the price.” My tone spoke of the boredom I didn’t feel.
She tilted her head up to meet my eyes. She was tall for her age, but I towered over her. “The most I’d part with for you is the gum beneath my shoe.”
I wanted to laugh. She probably packed gum beneath her shoe just to keep people away.
My eyes slid down her body once again, focused on those holey Chucks, and returned to her face, expressionless given how much I riled her up—and I knew I riled her up. “I have no doubt you’re the type with plenty of gum beneath your shoe.”
Her brows furrowed together before she relaxed and straightened her shoulders. “Well, this has been riveting,”—indeed, it had—“but I’m jet lagged. Bye.” She stepped forward before I could answer and bumped into my shoulder on her way out. A feisty princess, if I ever saw one.
It wasn’t till my eyes scanned the room for signs of foul play, I counted and recounted my cigars, my fingers traced the cigar seams for any tears, and I decided nothing looked out of place that I realized she’d stolen my phone.
The princess was a little thief.
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The workers in the De Luca household liked to gossip in Spanish, which was close enough to my native Italian that I had an idea of what they said. Señor Damian, as the maids called him, came home more often than usual lately, and they blamed me.
I loathed the sense I saw in their logic.
If ever there was a cold war between two strangers, this was it. I’d stolen Damiano De Luca’s phone. That didn’t exactly set a remarkable first impression. He hadn’t confronted me about it, but I knew he knew.
After sending Maman an email and erasing my digital tracks, I slipped the phone on the floor by his bedroom door. Maybe he would think he had dropped it.
A girl could hope.
That had been three days ago. Days passed, and tense silence thickened each time I heard him walk by my door. Thing was, I knew the heavy footsteps held intent. Syndicate royalty didn’t make noise as they walked. Training took care of that.
But each firm step Damiano De Luca took was deliberate. Like a move made on a chessboard, thought ten steps ahead. In fact, life in the De Luca household felt exactly like a chess match, in which I held no control over the board.
Maman always had the Vienna match laid on the chessboard in her library. Every now and then, she’d move a piece. Sometimes, a week apart; sometimes, a year apart. The dark king never sees his demise coming, she’d tell me each time I noticed a moved piece.
But I’d spent enough time looking at that chessboard to see my demise coming. Heard the breaths of impending doom each time I left the confines of my room. Felt the ironclad fingers of vengeance wrap around my neck whenever I dared to sneak food from the kitchen. Smelled the metallic blood of ruin trickle down my body whenever I dodged across the hall to use the bathroom.
I sensed it now as I grabbed a change of clothes and darted to the bathroom I shared with Damian. Like the other houses in Devils Ridge, Texas, the De Luca household was antiquated. Built in the 18th century, the house had been renovated only twice—once during the Victorian era, so it matched the aesthetics of the other Victorian-style homes in town, and once again a few years ago when the contractors had decided that introducing anything more than the minimal number of modern amenities would jeopardize the historic integrity of the home.
Historic integrity, my ass.
The East Wing bathroom had three rooms—a toilet room, a vanity room, and a bathing room. The door to the bathroom led to the bathing room, where a small bathing pool laid in the center, like I was on the set of Game of Thrones.
It occurred to me what a waste of water filling and draining this pool was, but I wasn’t going to bathe in Damian’s soiled water. I slid my silk robe off my shoulders and hung it on the hook beside the door, along with my change of clothes.
One of the maids had warmed the pool and filled it with bubbles earlier, and I dipped a toe into the water, exploring the temperature. My waist barely kissed the water before the door swung open.
I moved quickly, covering my breasts with the bubbles as I plunged fully into the pool. My eyes met Angelo De Luca’s as he stepped past the threshold, busting every myth about evil being incapable of entering a room uninvited. Or was that vampires?
“Miss Vitali.” He took a step closer, and I forced myself not to move away from my spot against the closest pool edge to the door. How someone so slimy and decrepit could spawn someone who looked like Damiano De Luca was beyond me. “My sources tell me you turn seventeen years old today.” The gap between us lessened. “Another year closer.”
